floating

Hello everyone It is wonderful to have a few minutes to write to youall and have a moment to put my thoughts together;The new developments here are difficult. It is anunusual feeling to be here and still in the darksomewhat because I can not understand the news fullyon the radio (I get only around 25% of the words. theytalk so fast). The only English info I get is from ashoddy BBC and a biased European/middle east CNN. Veryfrustrating that my sister has to call me to tell mewhat is going on? Strange. We heard last nighthelicopters flying over head up to the north. All thisfighting is about 2-3 hours north of here and yet wespent the afternoon and evening swimming and playingat the beach with out a care! So weird. I can’t fillanyone in on details as I am sure you are all pummeledwith news. All I can say from this point of view froma somewhat/very ignorant American new immigrant thatis about to send her son into the army in a few yearsthat…I would be so grateful if my country went to warto get my son back from being kidnapped! Thank god.Knowing that they are doing something big to get himback. I know that it also is very political andinvolves money for the exchange life for life. A fewyears ago Israel traded 500 live political prisonersfor two Israeli bodies of soldiers. I pray for aresolution to get these boys back. They really areboys. My sisters’ two sons are starting he army in afew months.Overall we are still in hyper-speed mode. Busy all daylong yet feeling quite strange because it is notfilled with patients and work. I miss working a TON! Imiss all my patients/friends. My hand is still quiteweak and limited. I thought that at the 5 week point Icould remove the brace and voila all done with theproblem. I really miss the joy and vitality Iexperience with my hands on people (as most of youknow). It is has been very strange not to touch noone. Even on vacations I would find myself regularlyworking on people but with this fracture even typingis fatiguing. Yes I know it will pass but I want itnow! Give me the golden egg now daddy!Josh is spending two weeks at a day camp forwindsurfing, kayaking and sailing. Every day adifferent one of those sports. He is a natural in thewater and is having fun. We are now down to paying him½ a shekel for any word he memorizes. Ha he is notgoing to be a millionaire nor get the 500 shekels heis aiming for to get the drivers license for go- cartracing that his new friend does. I haven’t checked itout thoroughly yet. Zach also has a made a new friend,Sam. His mom is from Liverpool, Dad is Israeli who isIraqi by culture. Let me just share that Liverpoolaccents are quite challenging as well as the wordusage. The mom asked us to come over for Shabbat lunchwith a: “do you fancy comin round for a bit of ….?” Ican’t even remember. It was quite embarrassing to haveto ask several times…WHAT??? Kind of funny though.Sam’s dad shared with us stories about when he was akid he would go hunting with the local Arabs and theirhunting dogs at night for porcupine. Apparently thoseArabs believed that fresh blood from a porcupine giveshealth, live and vitality. So, they would corner aporcupine in a cave with the dogs, get it some how andslash its throat then lean down and drink the blood.Blah! Yuk, I am going to barf!Lots more adventures but I liked the porcupine storybest this week. Drew is plugging away at Ulpan. He is really workingvery hard at the language school (Ulpan) with hisHebrew. For some reason the instructors say that theAmericans get the language the slowest and the fastestare the Russians. 20% of Israel is Russian. Mosteverything here (signs and stuff) are in Hebrew,Arabic, English and Russian. Drew is having a veryvery interesting time. Interestingly enough there arePalestinians, a Jordanian and an Egyptian in his Ulpanclass. He tells us about the interesting dynamicsamongst them all. He will have to fill you in.We ate dinner at a friend of Josh’s house. Mother isAlgerian born, raised in France until age 18 and thenIsraeli. The father came from Russian at age 24 afterbeing a naval officer and escaping right before thefall of the wall. This kid speaks Russian, Hebrew,French and English (they lived in Boston for twoyears). Talk about International. I love it! I lovethe cultural differences. Oh yeah, the food here isfantastic, fresh produces and is killing my waistline.Although the walking helps burn it off! We walkeverywhere. I like that a lot.Our friends from Boulder are here, the Chizzali’s.Their kids are going to camp with our kids and mylittle sisters kids as well. So in the evenings we endup at the beach with the bar-be –que going, smash ballplaying. We end up leaving the sand around 8:30 atnight. That is really special. Life here seems on theoutside so fun, driving is crazy but manageable. Kindof a game unless you yourself are stressed and then itis open free for all for anger explosion. No passiveaggressive stuff going on here. It is activeaggressive. Hey a new term! I am not passiveaggressive, I am active aggressive! Ha ha. So takethat! Drew loves it because he is a suppressed roadrage guy so he gets right down to the mentality of allthe other five year old boys on the road pushing forfirst place in line! (He is going to be mad at me whenhe reads this hee hee). As I was hunting around forthe sources of stress that I haven’t seen besidesthose listed above I asked a friend who is a soldierofficer guy. He said that I don’t really have thestress until my kids are in the army. He said that thestats are that there are only around 100,000 activeIsraeli soldiers and that 90% plus are in Gaza rightnow. (This letter was written before the north’sproblems). Careful what you watch... CNN is superbiased. I can’t get too political but always alwaysquestion the sources as the media is so oftenmisleading and wrong.I go up and down about feeling confident in gettingwork. There is an abundance of excellent therapists inthe area. The local social medicine clinic is alsovery good. I thought that only 10-15 minutes is spentwith each patient although I find out that it is morelike 45 min-1 hour. I have to be patient. Yesterday aswe were playing this game “smash ball-like a beachpaddle tennis” this lifeguard, Saji offered to takeall the kids for rides on his life saver,windsurfer-like board that he stands on in the backand paddles in standing. The board is about 3.5-4 feetwide. So 5 of us scrambled on the board and went for atootle. He zealously tried to teach me anatomy whilepaddling, directing the children, and explainingsimultaneously in Hebrew, English and Latin the majormuscle groups. In retrospect it was hysterical. There is so much to tell I must stop somewhere. I prayfor peace and safety for all humans on this earth.Send your angels of safety and goodness over here toIsrael. I miss you and love it when you write andshare your thoughts. Blessings foreverAdele